This report by Hani Eskandar (ITU), Barbara- Chiara Ubaldi (OECD) and Vyacheslav Cherkasov (UN-DESA) highlights the critical potential of mobile technologies for improved public governance, as well as for economic and social progress in achieving the internationally agreed development goals including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The September 2011 report also provides an in-depth analysis of the prerequisites for m-government, its main benefits and challenges, the value-chain and key stakeholders, and the checklist of concrete actions to sustain policy makers in monitoring and updating their knowledge on m-government.

Chapters:
1. Toward the next generation of public services
2. Benefits and outcomes of m-government
3. Understanding m-government adoption
4. Prerequisites for agility and ubiquity
5. Technology options for mobile solutions
6. M-Vision and a call to action

The report was drafted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in collaboration with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

Last week the UK media were suddenly abuzz on how behavioural insights can help government decisions and actions by being able to nudge behaviour in a favourable direction. Apparently it has become a cure-all and …

Acclaimed anthropologist Stefana Broadbent leads a new "Collective Intelligence" unit at Nesta, the UK innovation charity, that is "looking at ways to support the emergence of Collective Intelligence to solve complex societal issues".
More concretely, they …

Drew Bamford is the person responsible for making the ITC's experience design – how the company's devices feel and work like 'HTC phones' rather than just another Android handset.
HTC's head designer's purvue is focused on …

Making Good our Future: Exploring the New Boundaries of Open & Social Innovation in Manufacturing
Policy Paper prepared for the European Commission
May 2015, 49 pages
As part of the Social Innovation Europe initiative, the European Commission has …

Vivian Graubard describes on WhiteHouse.gov how the U.S. Digital Service is working on modernizing the USA’s still largely paper based immigration service, pairing a better technical base with user-centered design.
We traveled to USCIS (United States …

People’s reluctance to share data about their energy use is likely to stand in the way of “smart” technology designed to promote energy efficiency, experts say.
A study, published online in Nature Climate Change, finds that …

Nudging to improve public policy, health care and our relationship with technology

On Nudging In Public Policy
By Alon M. August, University of Redlands (USA)
April 6, 2015
This thesis examines nudging, a technique aimed at making individuals act, choose, and behave in the ways deemed rational by policy makers. …